


Creepy Stalker

by annagarny



Series: New York State of Mind [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 11:35:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annagarny/pseuds/annagarny





	Creepy Stalker

"Tony, what are you doing?"  
"Nothing."  
"You're on the couch. In your underwear." Pepper was glaring at the back of Tony's head as he refused to move. He was, indeed, sprawled on a couch, flat on his stomach, in nothing but a black t-shirt and matching boxers. His bandaged arm was tucked underneath his chest and the other was propping his head up on the arm of said couch.

He was staring at the top of the staircase that led to the workshop/lab/infirmary with laser-like intensity.

"Stop being a creeper."  
"I'm not being a creeper."  
"You're lying there, waiting for Phil and Clint to come upstairs so that you can spy on them."  
"I'm in my own house, on a Saturday, on my couch, and you think I have an ulterior motive? Shame on you!" Tony still hadn't looked away from the top of the stairs.  
Pepper sighed, deciding that she was not going to be the one to try and lever Tony out of his fox-hole. If he wanted to taunt two of SHIELD's most deadly agents, that was his prerogative. She turned around and exited the lounge, shooting one last comment over her shoulder.  
"Just don't come crying to me when they beat you up."

Tony just huffed, blowing his hair up and away from his forehead, still not looking away from the stairs.

>>  
>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>>

As it eventuated, only Phil's right foot needed serious attention - the abrasions on his left heel were more superficial than anything and a couple of band-aids over some antiseptic cream were sufficient to patch that part up. His right, however, required two stitches where a large piece of glass had sliced into the back end of his arch - it was little wonder he had barely been able to walk.

Dr Greene stitched him up, wrapped the foot in bandages and issued him a set of crutches before shooting an e-mail to Director Fury.  
"I'm ordering you out of the field for seventy-two hours. I know that I can't stop you from doing paperwork, but you've got to stay off those stitches or you'll damage something permanently."  
"Thanks, Mark."  
"I've given you the same directive, Clint."  
Clint's head whipped up at that.  
"What?"  
"You're exhausted - you haven't slept in three days, JARVIS tattled. You're off the roster until you're back to a normal pattern."  
"Doc, you do know that not many people use the word 'normal' around here for a reason-"  
"I also know that the four hours this morning was the longest natural sleep you've had in almost two weeks. You're on desk duty until I'm happy that you're sleeping properly. Phil, it's your responsibility to keep him in line."  
"Sure thing."

Dr Greene smiled at the pair of them, almost indulgent, before shooing them out of the infirmary.

"Okay, go, and keep each other out of trouble."

>>  
>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>>

"Tony, what are you doing?"  
"Nothing."  
Steve sighed, and sat down on the couch at Stark's feet, poking his calf until Tony twisted his head to look at him.  
"Tony."  
"Steve."  
"Why are you here?"  
"I live here."  
"No, I mean, why are you in this part of the house?"  
"Pepper asked the same thing five minutes ago. I can't just nap on my own couch?"  
"Not when you're on a couch I've never seen you anywhere near before."  
"Well, I like this couch. It's good to sleep on."  
"Tony, you never sleep on your stomach - you were complaining about the fact that you can't anymore just the other day."  
"What?"  
"You said that your reactor makes it hard to sleep on your stomach."  
"So?"  
"So, if you were really sleeping, you'd be on your back. And probably on the other couch in the bar, the one you usually pass out on."  
"Dammit, Steve, what are you, my mother?"  
"No, I'm just trying to stop you from doing something cruel."  
"Cruel?"  
"You're waiting for Phil and Clint to come upstairs so that you can make fun of them. Or something like that."

Tony's eyebrows drew together at that and he shifted slightly so that he was on his side and could look at Steve more directly.

"Do you really think so little of me, Steve?" he asked, sounding genuinely wounded.  
"I don't know what to think, Tony. I thought that you would be the last person to question someone else's happiness, but here you are, lying in wait. Literally."

Tony rolled entirely onto his back and kicked his feet up so that they landed in Steve's lap, ignoring the fact that moving like he had left his boxers twisted, the button-fly at his hip, and his t-shirt similarly dislocated. He threaded his fingers together behind his head and looked directly at Steve.

"You're not okay with this."  
"Actually, I am, Tony."  
"Yeah, you're not. Hell, wasn't it illegal when you were a kid?"  
"What, homosexuality?"  
"Yeah, that."  
"I'm- I'm not sure. I never really thought about it. I mean, there were guys, in the Army... and a few times when I was touring with the girls there would be men who were more interested in me than the dancers..."  
"You got propositioned by a dude when you were on tour?"  
"Not propositioned as such, but, I don't know. I was never good at reading that kind of thing... the first girl to kiss me, I didn't even know that she was flirting with me until she had her arms around my neck."  
"Some horny chick stole your first kiss? Was that before or after the serum?"  
"After. I was waiting to talk to Howard, actually, and Peggy walked in on us. She fired a gun at me a few minutes later."  
"Heh, yeah, Dad told me that story, how she was all pissed off about something and the shield she fired at was only a prototype."  
Steve sighed, but he had a far-away look in his eyes and a small smile on his face at the same time.  
"I think she thought I'd been going around kissing every office girl in the service, at the time."  
"Did you ever tell her any different?"  
"Yeah, I did. Right at the end, before I crashed, I think she understood."  
"Did you ever get to kiss her?"  
"Just once, but it was amazing. Why do you think I was so depressed when I first woke up? I was supposed to crash, get stuck for a few days, your Dad was supposed to find me and then I was going to take her dancing. Instead, I wake up in the next damn century and get introduced to her granddaughter, who tells me that I missed Peggy by less than six months."

Tony was watching Steve, really seeing him properly, probably for the first time since he'd known the man. Sure, his entire life Howard had told Tony stories about Captain America and how he was the bravest soldier in the Army, about the things the Howling Commandos had done, about the man behind the legend. For the first ten or so years of his life, Tony had believed every word Howard had told him about the Captain, had admired the legend who had been lost decades before Tony was even born. 

"That must have sucked." Tony said, after a long moment of silence had stretched almost to breaking point between them.  
"It did. But I've got you guys, now. It's not the same, but I know that I can't go back, so I'm making the most of what I've got here."

Tony nodded a little at that, shifting slightly and rearranging his boxers as subtly as he could, without digging his heels into Steve's thigh.

"So you do actually like us? I thought you hated me when we first met."  
"I'm amazed that I could even speak when we first met - you look so much like Howard that for a few seconds I thought I was speaking to a ghost. Why do you think I called you 'Mr Stark' for so long? I was terrified that I'd accidentally call you Howard and you'd hate me."  
"Me, hate you? Come on, you've been my hero since I was a kid. Check it out." Tony hooked a thumb through the waistband of his boxers and Steve automatically put a hand over his eyes, objecting.

"No, Tony, what are you doing!?"  
"It's just a tattoo, Cap!" Steve slowly separated his fingers and looked down, ready to slam his eyes shut again at the merest hint of impropriety, but instead he saw what Tony was talking about.  
"Is that - that's my shield. The one I actually used in the field... the one your Dad designed."  
"Yep." Tony was holding the right edge of his boxers down with his thumb, revealing the four-inch-across tattoo on his hip. "Only tattoo I ever wanted. I did want to get it up here," he gestured at his chest, "-but I'm kind of glad I didn't because this thing would have ruined it." he tapped the glass front of his arc reactor to punctuate the sentence.  
"Yeah, and you've got to have good pecs like mine to pull off ink on your chest." the voice came from the top of the stairs and Tony leaned his head backwards over the arm of the couch to see Clint smirking at him. Phil a couple of steps ahead of him on his crutches, balancing on the ball of his left foot with his right suspended in midair as he swung through the room and towards the stairs.  
"You have any tattoos, Barton?"  
"A couple, but I'm not showing them to you, Stark."  
"What about you, Coulson?"  
"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." Phil shot at him, but he was grinning. "I mean, other than this one." he stopped and leaned on his crutches, lifting the right sleeve of the t-shirt to reveal 'Semper Fidelis' across the top of his arm, above 'USMC', both in ornate script, both sharp and clear against his pale skin.

Steve was kind of gaping at them and Clint sniggered.  
"Bit different from in your day, hey Cap?"  
"Bit. Used to be only sailors got tattoos."  
"Heaps of people get them, now. Hell, I think Darcy has a tramp-stamp." Tony was rewarded for this remark with Phil rapping him on the forehead with one of his crutches.  
"Hey!"  
"Show some respect, Stark. It's not a tramp-stamp, it's between her shoulders." Coulson corrected him.  
"How do you know where Darcy has a tattoo?" Clint asked, dropping into the love-seat next to the couch Tony and Steve were sprawled on. 

Phil sighed and rolled his eyes a little before joining him, propping his crutches up against the wall.

"You'll have to ask her to tell that story, it was after you'd been sent back to New York, I was helping her and Jane set the lab back up."  
"Huh." Clint shifted slightly so that he and Phil were touching from shoulder to knee, and without conscious thought Phil lifted his arm and stretched it along the back of the seat, so that Clint leaned even closer into him.

"Oh, god, you two are going to be all cute and couple-y, now, aren't you?" Tony asked, pulling a face.  
"Probably. Mainly just to annoy you." Clint told him, tilting his head back to lean properly on Phil's collarbone.  
"Sounds like a plan." Phil agreed with him, dragging his fingers through Clint's hair, trying not to smirk at Tony's grimace.  
"Eurgh. It's like watching your parents be all kissy-face... you know that it happens but when it's in front of you it's just too weird..." Tony covered his face with both hands as he spoke, his boxers snapping back into place.

Phil was smiling, just the slightest hint of an up-turn at the edges of his mouth. Truthfully, he wasn't heavily into public displays of affection, but this was Tony Stark's house and anything Phil could do to annoy him was a complete bonus. If that meant getting handsy with Clint, so much the better.

"Okay, okay, that's enough. This is my house, so I'm setting some ground rules."  
"Really?" Clint asked, one eyebrow raised.  
"Cap, you might want to cover your ears, there's about to be some bad language."

Like an obedient kindergartener, Steve raised his palms to his ears and closed his eyes for good measure, humming something that sounded suspiciously like 'Teenage Dream' as he leaned back, and Phil took a moment to wonder who had introduced him to Katy Perry, before Tony started his litany.

"No fucking outside of your bedrooms, no matter how drunk you are. Pants must be worn at all times when outside bedrooms or bathrooms. No kissy-face where I might have to witness it, and tell JARVIS if you break anything. Oh, and I've disabled the surveillance on both of your bedrooms, already. I definitely do not need any of _that_ on tape."  
"Anything else, Mr Stark?" Phil asked, trying not to sound amused. There wasn't anything on that list that he could really object to, though he got the distinct impression from the way Clint's torso was vibrating with suppressed laughter that the archer was planning to actively break a few of the rules, just to see what the consequences might be.  
"I don't know what you did in the bar, last night, but in future, clean up before you leave a blood trail through the house. I thought someone had slaughtered a cow. Okay, Steve. Steve!" Tony poked Steve with one toe and the big guy removed his hands, opening his eyes.  
"It's over?"  
"All over, Cap."  
"No more... sex... talk?"  
"No more sex talk. You're safe."  
"Is it strange that I'm still so-"  
"Not at all." Phil and Tony both spoke at the same time and Steve seemed to relax, reassured that his, well, archaic attitude wasn't something that put the other men off.

"I just feel like I'm so out of place, but I'm catching up. I mean, there's some things that are easy, but other things are taking longer. Even back in the forties I wasn't very good with this kind of stuff..." he kind of trailed off as he realised that the other men in the room were just nodding, agreeing with him without question. He relaxed into the sofa cushion, still pinned down by Tony's ankles on his leg, and something like tension seemed to leech out of his shoulders.  
"Good. Good to know. Thanks, guys."  
"You're welcome. And now, I want to get some real clothes on. Help me up, Barton."  
"Yes, sir." Clint leapt to his feet in one fluid motion, caught Phil's hand and tugged him upright, hooking his crutches under Phil's arms and then standing back so that the older man could exit the room.

"And keep it down!" Tony shouted as they vanished into the hallway, heading for Clint's room. 

Well, Tony supposed, it was probably going to be 'their' room from now on. He grinned to himself before looking back at Steve, who was also smiling.

"Pancakes, Cap?"  
"Sounds great, Mr Stark."


End file.
